DVD review: 'No Country for Old Men'

"No Country for Old Men" is "a horror movie," star Tommy Lee Jones proclaims in the DVD extras for the Oscar-winning film. "A lot of killing goes on."

But later on, he figures it this way: "There's a great deal of humor in it, so you could call it a comedy."

That duality won't prove much of a mystery for anyone who's followed "the brothers" -- Joel and Ethan Coen -- through their quarter-century of filmmaking. In fact, Jones' analysis perfectly fits their first movie, "Blood Simple," another tale of cold-blooded murder in rural Texas.

Miramax (Disney) will release the Academy Awards' best picture winner on DVD and Blu-ray on March 11, two weeks after the Oscars.

The "No Country" Blu-ray looks sensational, arid-clear and artful. Images are letterboxed to the theatrical specs of 2.35:1. Audio is front-centered with surprisingly limited use of the rear soundstage. Dialogue is crisp and nicely balanced.

The extras aren't much on this initial DVD release, but provide a decent 40-minute extension of the movie-viewing experience. No commentary. I'd look for a post-Oscars collector's edition in the not-too-distant future.

The main extra, a half-hour making-of featurette, capably covers the basics, from the trio of stars down to the props guys.

Cormac McCarthy's hard-minded novel was "begging to be turned into a movie," Joel Coen says. "It read like a (script) treatment," Jones adds.

The killer played by Javier Bardem (the supporting actor Oscar winner) wasn't fully described in the book, only characterized as lacking a sense of humor. The Coens sought an actor who was "unplaceable ethnically and nationally" and hired the Spaniard Bardem, a major fan of their work. The cipher-like killer "believes in one thing and that is fate," Bardem says.

Jones, who plays the west Texas sheriff of the title, hails from the Lonestar State. Josh Brolin, who plays the cowboy hero, has put in his time wearing the hat and ranching, he says. The actress who plays the cowboy's wife, Kelly Macdonald, hails from Scotland, but has that weird British gift of being able to nail American accents, the Coens note. In the interview segments, she seems to alternate her Scottish lilt and Texas accent.

A second featurette, "Working With the Coens," finds everyone in sight in awe of the brothers, as expected. "They are like the same person with two heads," Bardem says. One craftsperson says of their willingness to collaborate: "They make filmmakers out of all of us."

The final extra, "Diary of a Country Sheriff," shows how Jones' lawman is basically unable to comprehend the brutality of the 1980s drug wars on the Tex-Mex border. "Sheriff Bell pretty much lives up to the (movie's) title," Jones says.

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Comments

[patrick]

no country for old men is unassumingly clever, even funny at times... what happens next is always unexpected and yet it never goes "over the top." well done indeed.